Car dealer accused of grand theft

PACOIMA - Long before they arrested Ali Shahryarinejad on Thursday, Department of Motor Vehicles investigators suspected that he gave a customer the ultimate hard sell.

After the DMV served a $2 million arrest warrant for the owner of Bank Repo Auto on Thursday morning, the unlicensed dealer went away in handcuffs.

Arrested on suspicion of 15 counts of grand theft for allegedly taking customers' cars on consignment and paying them with bogus checks, he also rang up a charge of assault with a deadly weapon for a July incident with another dealer.

DMV investigator Robert Ortiz said the other dealer had given Shahryarinejad $50,000 worth of cars on consignment. Shahryarinejad, also known as Al Nejad, allegedly refused to pay, the two argued and after a brief fight, things came to a head.

"Al goes behind his desk and gets an assault rifle," Ortiz said. "He racks it, points it at him and says, `You know who I am?' The guy thinks he's going to die."

On top of the alleged assault, DMV Area Commander Vito Scattaglia said the seven-month investigation uncovered 75 complaints from customers with more than $1.3 million in stolen property.

The dealer also owes the DMV $10,000 for checks with insufficient funds and $750,000 to the Board of Equalization for unpaid taxes.

Shahryarinejad lost his license in April for failing to pay taxes, and Scattaglia said that rather than square his accounts, the dealer merely picked up his operations and relocated to a new lot on Osborne Street near the Golden State Freeway.

As the investigators loaded him into the back of a car Thursday, Shahryarinejad professed his innocence. He said business had been tight and he'd gotten tied up in bankruptcy, but that he'd tried to work with the DMV to straighten everything out.

He said it would all be worked out in time.

"At the moment, we're just dealing with allegations," he said. "I've been in the neighborhood for 20 years. I've tried to take care of my customers."